


the endless pride of hungry lions

by swanliet



Category: Hannibal (TV), Hannibal Lecter Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Developing Relationship, Falling In Love, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, Hannibal Lecter is a Cannibal, Hannibal Lecter is the Chesapeake Ripper, Literary References & Allusions, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rating May Change, Scenting, Slow Burn, but not an a/b/o kind of way
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:54:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25194247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swanliet/pseuds/swanliet
Summary: Hannibal’s eyes rove over Will’s face, this boy who is cleverly and skillfully testing the limits of his self-discipline, and feels once again that exhilarating tug of depravity. The corners of his lips curve up as he gently takes Will’s face in his hands, cradling his cheeks like one holding the fabled holy grail from Arthurian legends.“I merely wished to… smell you,” he says as delicately as he can, his smile broadening when Will’s brows furrow in soft confusion. “If I remember correctly, you seemed to not appreciate that I did it without asking first. I thought, this time, I would politely acquire your consent if you allowed it.”
Relationships: Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter
Comments: 9
Kudos: 52





	the endless pride of hungry lions

**Author's Note:**

> set during season 1. this is my attempt at dipping my toes into the water and exploring will and hannibal as two distinct characters in an intimate and casual setting. it’s a little intimidating to step into the hannibal ficdom but i’m immeasurably excited about it as well! let me know what you all think. oh & i’m not sure how long this will turn out to be as it’s purely experimental and an outlet for my creative enjoyment! rating might go up.
> 
> title borrowed from sherman alexie’s ‘sonnet, with pride’.

Hannibal Lecter considers himself to be a man of ironclad unassailable restraint, one that is finely and elegantly fashioned. Everything worth having, Hannibal muses, requires sophisticated patience. Deliberation. It is not unlike a rhapsodic hunt: hiding in the rippling shadows, biding time while keeping his eyes on his doubtless gullible prey. His lips twitch in faint amusement as he decides he must amend. A prey Will Graham certainly is, but a gullible one he is not. He is like an enchanting wild creature that, though groomed and transformed into a proper civilized boy, retains his intrinsic survival instincts to protect himself from those that might hurt him or harm his loved ones. There is such feral beauty in him, dreamy-soft yet sweetly dangerous. He could be so much more than he already is. Hannibal sees it, knows it, like an augur with his elysian fumes and his portentous visions. And, oh, there he goes again failing to resist the ardent temptations of his flights of fancy when his lovely muse is right here in his office. Will is shrugging off his rumpled corduroy jacket and draping it over the back of the reclining leather chair. Hannibal finds that his gaze is now often drawn to Will and he is reluctant to deny himself the unadulterated curious pleasure it affords him. 

After all, Hannibal has never been one to turn his back on sumptuous luxuries. Will, in his own unique way, is effortlessly sublime. 

Adeptly, Hannibal pretends to rifle through his sketches and acts as though he is engrossed in arranging his desk, seizing the opportunity to look through his lashes at Will. Will tucks his hands into the pockets of his jeans and shuffles slowly towards the wall book-case. He doesn’t demand Hannibal’s attention and doesn’t intrude on his personal space, content with his absent-minded inspections until Hannibal is ready to start their session. What a polite boy, Hannibal thinks, keeping his eyes on Will as he stores his notes and his papers into his desk’s drawers with languid unhurried movements. The more time he buys himself, the better, but not so much so that he gives off the impression of discourtesy. Will doesn’t seem bothered by the minor delay. He’s scanning the titles inscribed on the spines of the leather-bound books, his head tilted to the side to read them so, as a consequence, a curled lock of hair falls over his brow and brushes the rim of his glasses. 

Briefly, indulgently, Hannibal wonders if this is the face that launched a thousand ships. One could so easily kill and be killed for Will. It would be glorious, this rapturous violence of passion, a euphonious overture that plays in accompaniment with the rhythm of Hannibal’s beating heart. Nothing gets his blood pumping while communicating his profound adoration like tasteful purposeful cruelty. Hannibal steps away from his desk, his eyes still insouciantly raking over Will. He gives off the illusion of being deliciously frail like he could be swallowed whole in one fell swoop but Will is as much a vicious warrior as Hannibal is a seasoned butcher. He would never go down without a fight, a worthy opponent who would deploy every weapon in his arsenal until the playing field is evened out. Hannibal would offer his own soul, would gladly rend it and shred it apart for a chance to witness a scene of such powerful vulnerable beauty. But, for now, he is content to have Will like this: in Hannibal’s immaculate office, his very own structured space. It is one that he receives his patients at all the time and yet it is subtly but surely altered by Will’s presence. It is made more intimate, more sacred, as though it is Will’s and Hannibal’s consecrated temple that separates them from the rest of the odious ever-churning world and its equally unremarkable denizens. 

Will’s attention is caught by a particular title and Hannibal watches with a degree of concealed mirth as he reaches out to pull it out only to pause halfway with his hand suspended in the air, his full pink lips pinching in thought. Then, he turns to Hannibal, his blue eyes dark and bottomless in the shadowy golden ambiance of Hannibal’s office. 

“Could I?” Will asks with complete sincerity, as though he dares to be sinfully oblivious to his immensely delightful charm. 

“Of course, Will,” Hannibal tips his head forward, careful not to allow anything to the surface of his expression. “My office’s library is yours to explore and parse through. I wouldn’t have the heart to forbid you.”

Will’s lips twist into a sardonic smile, something rather bewitching in its comfortable honesty and that would undoubtedly be off-putting on anyone else but Will. “You sound like The Beast from those sordid fairytales attempting to win my favor by giving me unrestricted access to your extensive and prized book collection.”

“Is that so?” Hannibal murmurs, pressing his lips into a thin line so he wouldn’t smile too widely and incriminate himself. He isn’t in the habit of being caught red-handed, but he supposes he must resign himself to it. Will Graham is as razor-sharp as a hunting knife, which makes him all the lovelier to handle. It is often diverting to play with dangerous objects, toeing the line between exhilarating risk and mortal peril, both of which are Hannibal’s irreplaceable darlings, both of which he can’t seem to do without. They are the music of his blood, the music of the cosmos, the eternal indomitable orchestra that thrums and beats and shivers. “Are you Beauty, then, Will? I can’t fault you for assigning the role to yourself. You are, after all, exceedingly compassionate, a dedicated caretaker to your motley menagerie of strays thereby a friend to animals, and a wily boy with a heart of gold. All of which are admirable qualities that make you an excellent Beauty in my humble but reliable opinion.”

Will scoffs dismissively, his brows furrowing as he shakes his head in mild exasperation. “Humble? I don’t believe for a second that you think your opinions amount to anything less than divine commandments.”

“Am I to be a God then, too? You think far too highly of me, dear Will,” Hannibal says, regarding Will with affectionate tenderness. Will rolls his eyes, his pink lips stretching into a begrudging smile and it is such a beguiling response that Hannibal is utterly spellbound and savagely enamored, much like an art student who is hypnotized by a painting of such brutal yet gentle resplendence that it becomes their lifelong obsession and their ethereal idol. Will is lightly fingering the spine of the book, gliding the tip of his finger down the supple leather. This close, Hannibal can smell him. That intolerable aftershave is the prevailing note but, beneath that, is Will’s natural scent. Woodsy with the crystalline frosty memory of common jasmines and the faint spice of sandalwood curiously but predictably punctuated by the musk of wet dogs and springwater. He is delectable, tantalizingly so. 

To Hannibal's surprise and delight, Will hums as he plucks the book out and offers a nod of acknowledgment without looking up at Hannibal. “If anyone, out of all the people I know, could be described as godly, it would be you.” Before Hannibal has the chance to part open his lips, Will barrels on in a low sigh, “and don’t ask me to elaborate. I’ll disappoint you by adamantly refusing. Your ego’s fluffed up enough as it is.” 

Hannibal’s lips curve up in a long smile, one that he’s sure has accidentally turned into a smirk with a devilish flare. Will seems to have the singular skill of eliciting sincere reactions out of him and Hannibal finds that he doesn’t disapprove of it because Will does it with artful panache and innocuous sarcasm that is appealing as much as it is endearing. “Tell me, Will, how is my ego ‘fluffed up’ exactly? I don’t see anyone else alluding to my godhood and, if they did, then I’m afraid I must disappoint _you_ by revealing that I lack omniscience.” 

Will finally gazes up at him through his thick dark lashes, his eyes glittering like two polished stars, a light flush riding high on his cheekbones. He is lit with mischief when he gasps in mock-betrayal, hugging the book up against his chest, and grinning toothily like a gorgeous cruel trickster. “Oh, Doctor Hannibal Lecter, I’m not disappointed at all. In fact, I’m ecstatic. I see I’ve finally spotted a chink in your armor. How it must hurt you to admit that you don’t know everything.”

“Perhaps,” Hannibal concedes, warm satisfaction unraveling in his chest at the sight of Will’s effusive mirth, even if Will is laughing at his expense. He’s not so proud or too self-possessed that he would be affronted by it and he hasn’t seen Will smile like this before. He’s as beautiful as Hannibal imagined him to be: bright, dazzling, and as deserving of worship as any unattainable deity. But, Hannibal muses, he’d look even more exquisite with a doleful melancholic countenance, unshed tears glimmering like translucent pearls and clumping his thick lashes together, the tip of his nose flushed cherry-red, his chest heaving as he tries to breathe through his wet hiccups and his low tight voice unwinding so that it’s made soft and sweet by his transformative poignant pain. Hannibal lets himself imagine it for a second and then shelves it in his mind for later inspection. He can’t afford to drift away for too long in Will’s pleasurable company. Hannibal is not one to take priceless gifts for granted. “Though, I shall confess if you permit me…” he prompts and Will, his lips still softened by a small smile, nods graciously. “Disclosing my shortcomings to you and therefore undermining the status of my conjectured divinity is a vulnerability I am more than happy to offer you, Will. After all, friendship is the deconstruction of our private mythologies to render them public and knowable. There is no greater virtue than that of a friendship’s cultivation so I hope in the future I could afford you more failures for your pleasure.”

Will blinks indolently, much like a curious doe, and then, likely without excessive thought or consideration on his part, he angles his body towards Hannibal, his arms still protectively clutching the book against his chest. He cocks his head to the side, his curled bangs casting shadows over his distracting eyes, something playful but sweet-tempered flashing in their glassy darkness. “Would you really let me understand you and know you better because it would…” he hesitates, his tongue darting out to wet his lower lip. “ _Please_ me? It doesn’t terrify you?—What I could find out?”

“You’ll be glad to discover that I think what is horrific is often life-affirming. Only by letting everything happen to us can we experience change and, sometimes if we’re lucky, a metamorphosis that marks us indelibly.” Then, “Will, did you know that we are often attracted and attached to that which threatens us? You say the possibility of befriending me terrifies you. Could it be that it also excites you? Aren’t fear and thrill one and the same? Inseparable, entangled together at the roots, and utterly harmonious.” Hannibal’s voice dips lower, its edges smoothing out so that it’s smoky and lilting: a predator’s song, a siren’s whisper. Destructive and seductive. “Fear takes us back to the age of blood, to infancy, to the very beginnings of our inception. Among the odors, the appetites, the food, the earthworms and the dead. And then there is thrill.” Hannibal’s gaze rakes over Will’s face: he is listening raptly, attentively, but his eyes are far-off as though he is enthralled. Oh, Will could be so susceptible and receptive to Hannibal’s influence over time. Hannibal could unearth all the nacreous spoils that are buried deep within him and disturb the sleeping sediments of his innermost desires. Slowly, so as not to startle Will, Hannibal raises his hand up and delicately brushes his thumb over Will’s cheekbone. Will inhales deeply, his spindly lashes fluttering, but stays carefully still, like he’s wary of moving lest Hannibal stops touching him. Fond amusement sputters in Hannibal’s chest like the soft operatic croon of a radio. The rest of his fingers are outstretched over the shell of Will’s ear and buried into the silky tumble of his curls and it is so visually gratifying that Hannibal makes quick work of committing the impression to memory so he can sketch it out in a moment of repose. “Thrill, dearest Will, is obscene and theatrical. It is great acts of classical brutality. Medea killing her own children, Oedipus gouging his eyes out, Clytemnestra slitting her husband’s throat. But thrill is also ruinous desire. It is hunger. It is an ache. It eats you from the inside out and you let it because you want it to.” 

He knots his fingers in Will’s hair, tightening his grip ever so slightly and relishing in the softness of it. Will’s throat moves as he swallows, his gaze heavy-lidded and his breath intoxicatingly hot. Hannibal inches closer, fatally fascinated and irrevocably enticed by Will’s artless sensuality. “May I?” He whispers against the underside of Will’s jaw, too overcome with the raw spontaneity and palpable tension to exercise his usual brand of refined control. It is unlikely that anyone, least of all Hannibal, could properly and expertly restrain themselves because Will looks near ambrosial, an Edenic forbidden fruit: sweetly pliant and drunk off of this illicit intimacy and thrumming with greedy longing. Like one of Caravaggio’s glamorous drowsy youths with their garlands and their bowls of grapes. 

Will’s blush deepens, but he doesn’t shift away and he doesn’t push Hannibal. As though immobilized by a trance, he remains still except for the involuntary shivery tremors caressing down his limbs. “Are you… going to kiss me?” He asks, his voice low and deep from embarrassment and anticipation. Hannibal can feel the sensuous molten heat of him: Will’s warm to the touch, like a lit candle or a fiery pyre. Like he’s been languishing underneath the munificent blaze of the sun, held tenderly in Apollo’s arms and anointed with a reverence reserved for only the most favored of acolytes. 

“Would you like me to kiss you, Will?” Hannibal asks back, his own voice perilously soft, closer to a whisper than a murmur as he considers Will patiently. 

“N—No,” Will replies, his gaze drifting down in bashful shame, his shoulders hunching as he curls in on himself: a martyr caught between two conflicting impulses, torn between one ache and another. “Not now. Not yet,” he amends. Then, he peers back at Hannibal again, tentative and vulnerable and irresistible. “If not kissing, what is it that you’re asking permission for, Hannibal?” 

Something like tenebrous thorny desire twines itself around Hannibal’s heart. Something like ill-begotten gratification rattles inside the kingdom of his clandestine skeletons. How he’d like to annihilate Will Graham, to sink his teeth into him, to _consume_ him and swallow him whole bones and all. Love is half-terror but carnal pleasure is a wolf in a henhouse, hungry and carnivorous, blood in mouth, flesh in stomach. Eventually, down the line, it will come down to this, to irreversible destruction and desecration. Hannibal recognizes its inevitability, its ordained unwinding, but now’s not the time for it. Hannibal’s eyes rove over Will’s face, this boy who is cleverly and skillfully testing the limits of his self-discipline, and feels once again that exhilarating tug of depravity. The corners of his lips curve up as he gently takes Will’s face in his hands, cradling his cheeks like one holding the fabled holy grail from Arthurian legends. “I merely wished to… smell you,” he says as delicately as he can, his smile broadening when Will’s brows furrow in soft confusion. “If I remember correctly, you seemed to not appreciate that I did it without asking first. I thought, this time, I would politely acquire your consent if you allowed it.”

Instead of averting his eyes out of flustered shyness or timid aversion, Will holds Hannibal’s gaze and regards him with open-faced curiosity, unfazed and steadfast. “Alright,” he says. “Sure, I guess? It’s just… I’m sorry if the aftershave’s too repugnant for your cultured sensitive palate. I didn’t have the time to replace it and I didn’t think I’d need to. So, you can save your complaints. You’re lucky you caught me in an agreeable mood and that I’m letting you do this.”

A chuckle slips out of Hannibal’s lips before he can reel it back. “Oh? And here you led me to believe that I am both a beast and a god and yet you would besmirch me so. How cruel of you, Will.”

Will half-shrugs as though carelessly dismissive of Hannibal’s faux-injury, as though he has no time for such trivialities. But rather than giving off the air of derision, it communicates Will’s growing amiability and trust: this capacity for engaging in comfortable banter and playful teasing. “It’s hardly my fault that you’re easy to flatter, Doctor Lecter,” he quips, his lips curling into a beautiful audacious smile that could disarm the most guarded of stoics. 

“Touché, Will. You’re proving to be far more cunning and resourceful than I initially gave you credit,” he remarks, electric delight sparking like a matchstick kindling with a quick decisive stroke. But there’s also a kind of strange seething hunger that has been gradually gnawing at him. It can be persuaded into temporary obedience, lulled into grumbling drowsiness and kept on a leash much the same way that he subdues his latent bloodlust yoked to the vehicle of his… ah, penchant for expressive and creative masterpieces. He focuses back on Will, surveying the splendid radiance spilling from his exuberant eyes as Hannibal arranges his expression into something light-hearted and, therefore, appropriate as demanded by the nature of this moment because he doesn’t want Will to misinterpret it as anything but Hannibal’s professional, if slightly eccentric and intimate, interest. “Would you like to move to the fainting couch by the window?”

“Mm, I don’t mind,” Will says with a small jerk of his head, putting the book back into its place with care worthy of admiration. Hannibal drops his arms to his sides, unable to tear his eyes away from Will, from the abundance of charm that he exudes with elemental candidness and unintentional poise. Will doesn’t put on airs, likely finds the notion unappealing and ridiculous and off-putting. Will might even think that he is not for everyone, that he is an acquired taste, or that he’s even undesirable, something dark and inaccessible and mercurial. But, Hannibal is slowly beginning to suspect, Will is also something rare, an emperor of a country that only Hannibal can travel and chart, a black mirror reflecting Hannibal’s secret corpses and shallow graves and beauty breathed into life by death. Will turns towards him, glances at Hannibal searchingly, with a deliberation that reminds Hannibal of an alert animal in the slumbering wilderness. He then walks towards the chaise and sits gingerly, his head cocked to the side, his hair messily and perfectly tousled. “If you don’t mind my asking, why are you so keen on…” Will pauses, grappling for words, heat once again suffusing his cheeks as the embarrassment comes back to claim him. 

“On scenting you?” Hannibal supplies bluntly.

Will huffs out a shy laugh, slipping his palm underneath the collar of his wrinkled dress shirt and rubbing at the juncture where his shoulder meets his neck, half sheepish and half guileless. Hannibal watches the movement in well-concealed besotted awe. It is so understated and simple, made valuable all the more so for its unaffected sweetness. “Yeah,” Will says. “Is it something that you try out on all your patients or am I… _different_?” There is a faint nearly imperceptible note of self-deprecating bitterness edged in Will’s voice and understanding its source is no arduous work. 

With a few quick broad strides, Hannibal crosses over to Will and stands close enough to him that he can admire the top of his head if he so wishes. Will looks back up at him, their gazes meeting for a brief second before Will’s flits away, his alluring lips pressed in a tight line, his resolute defiance like a proud flag rippling in a raging tempest. How dare he, Hannibal thinks as he quells a rather distracting surge of affection. How dare he serendipitously come into this world and wade into it, this world that Hannibal so meticulously and fastidiously crafted with all the finesse and veneration a god might have employed in their creation of the universe? Will is not a disturbance as much as he is an unaccounted for windfall. A thing of unexpected beauty and are those not the most cherished of treasures, mythical and coveted? “You _are_ different, Will,” Hannibal says, his gaze softening the same degree that Will’s own is hardened. They are defined in oppositions and yet they are not; not at a closer look and Hannibal intends to appraise Will the way a poet admires their Grecian Urn and the way a surgeon observes their patient: ardently and clinically. He watches Will tense up, but he remains attentive, silently waiting for Hannibal to continue, unbothered by the contemplative pause. Hannibal unbuttons his suit jacket as he smoothly takes the seat next to Will on the chaise, an arm’s length tragically separating them, Will’s baleful eyes trained on him with such ferocious tenacity. “Difference, whatever form or definition you imagine it to take, is not the marker of the deplorable. Quite the contrary, it is elevation. It is a novelty, vibrant and tempestuous and disruptive. It often reveals what is the best or worst in us and it is also often true that difference is both recognition and misrecognition and that which we define ourselves against and through.”

“Doctor Lecter,” Will says, his voice wry with an undertone of light exasperation but, Hannibal notes with an unmeasurable kind of satisfaction, Will’s remarkable eyes are shining though fixed they are on Hannibal’s chin. He shakes his head flippantly, his glossy curls bouncing along like dandelions caught in the wind. “I’m aware of the general theory rooted in the psychology of identity formation. This isn’t a lecture and I’m not your student. Don’t patronize me.”

Hannibal feigns surprise, widening his eyes just inconspicuously enough for Will to catch on. “My deepest apologies, Will. I did not presume for our roles to be set in stone. However, allow me the liberty to confess that I imagine you’d make an excellent student. Certainly, you’d present both a challenge and an opportunity and, were I your professor, I would delight in your presence and contributions to class discussions. Your mind and your vision lend themselves to enlightening overtures of philosophy.”

“Oh, so we’re bringing role-playing to the table alongside the elusive techniques of psychoanalysis?” Will laughs, the sound gruff but still distinctly mellifluous. Hannibal inclines his head with a soft chuckle, allowing the humor to saturate the air between them and imbue it with the lightness of ease. Will has not seemed so unburdened and willing to dispel the heavy load of cases that he’s been prompted to take on as he is currently. His face, usually impenetrable and grim, is open and lit up, a sky after the clouds have cleared; the muscles of his jaws, usually tight and clenched from the pernicious influence of his dark beautiful mind, are relaxed and smoothed out. There is something unaccountably breathtaking about his alacrity, his readiness to engage in Hannibal’s mutable and quicksilver metaphors. Hannibal watches, transfixed, as Will takes off his glasses to deftly fold them and slip them in his shirt’s breast pocket. He then slides his palm down his thigh hugged by the scratchy fabric of his jeans, a sensory tether most likely. “You have a sly sense of theater, Doctor. That, coupled with your incorrigible non-judgmental curiosity must work spectacularly on your dinner guests, friends, and conversation partners alike.”

Interestingly, his statement is devoid of the characteristic resentment that Hannibal has come to expect from Will when he references Hannibal’s vocation and Jack’s orders conscripting Hannibal as Will’s resident physiatrist. Instead, there is a compelling warmth and a wistful resignation buttressing his voice, almost as though he might be envious of Hannibal. Almost. 

“Are you excluding yourself from all three categories?” Hannibal asks, a little regretful that he is slicing through their golden effervescent exchange to flash a light at the muddy cumbersome creatures lying just beneath it. “Or is it only one that you deride and thus refuse to associate with?” He keeps his inquisitive eyes pinned on Will, cataloging and preserving the minutia of his eloquent face: the brightness dims fractionally, his expression falling and taking on a woebegone poignancy. Will may be obstinately withdrawn at times, but he reveals so much more than he intends, so much more than he could possibly know. It is a language that he strives and labors to bury underneath evasion and deflection but they are all air and misdirection to Hannibal’s discerning mind.

“I’m—I’m not sure,” Will fumbles, his voice catching as he tucks an errant piece of hair behind his ear, a gesture that Hannibal hasn’t seen before. He swiftly decides that it’s his favorite, both for its novelty and splendor. His objet d'art. “I’ve sat at your dinner table and occupied the chair opposite you in our… sessions but we haven’t discussed or outlined the parameters of our relationship within the latter context at length. I know we’ve brought up friendship several times but it isn’t as clear as I’d prefer it to be. You’re well-regarded and held in high esteem in your fields and I’m referring to the culinary, the medical, and the psychiatry ones. So, plural. It’s just,” Will parts his lips around a shaky exhale, a hollow frail thing. “I’m not sure I’m worth all that trouble.” 

Hannibal’s control over his facial expression doesn’t falter. He keeps his discontent to himself, lashed to the primitive monster that prowls within the halls of his palace. That Will thinks himself _unworthy_ of Hannibal and his regard is a disservice to both of them at best and a downright flagrant insult at worst. But Hannibal can be forgiving even if Will has no knowledge of the misstep. “It discomfits you that you grasp blindly in an unmapped labyrinth alone in the dark. Like Ariadne without her thread,” Hannibal concludes. “It is well within your right and, certainly, your prerogative. However, I’d also like to clarify that you are worth all the trouble and some more yet.” Will is a pursuit that Hannibal is happy to turn to and he’s given hours worth of reflection into the inexorable potential of their relationship. What it could become. What _they_ could become. There are so many paths, so many territories, untrodden and unexplored. _Here be dragons_. Consumption or synthesis or slaughter. No earthly pleasure or insatiable hunger can come close to embarking on this pilgrimage. However, this is all reserved for the future and Hannibal is trained in the fine art of scrupulous patience. That is how one yields fruitful results. Though, his hand may slip now and then if the situation demands it. From the moment he met Will Graham, he’s known that Will is the manifestation of their event horizon. That in Will and in his heightened empathy he could cultivate his match. _And perhaps a beloved should Will deem_ him _worthy_. Though, in Hannibal’s mind, there is no question about that.

“If you’d permit it, it’d be an honor to call myself your friend,” Hannibal says warmly, making sure his voice is well-modulated and as rich as aged Malbec wine. 

The blush that climbs up Will’s neck and spreads over to the high points of his cheeks is a pure heavenly nectar. Hannibal would like to reach out and press the cool back of his hand over the assuredly provocative heat of Will’s flesh. Or, better yet, to mouth against the feverish softness of it and bite it. Savor it against his tongue and mark it with his teeth. How would Will taste, Hannibal wonders. How would he sound? Would he turn into a shy boy or would he take on a more daring aspect? Would he tremble like a delicate bird or would he stalk like a starved lynx? Perhaps it’s prudent that Hannibal reserves such reveries for later, when he is alone with a glass of Balnton’s Gold and his sketchbook languishing in front of the fireplace on a quiet evening. 

“So you’re the kind of friend that sniffs their newly appointed friends?” Will manages, something giddy and joyous glazing over his voice, its substance so permeable it could seep into Hannibal’s untouchable skin. Infectious. He is infectious. His buoyancy rivaling the heady ascension Hannibal feels when he is working diligently at his slaughterhouse. When he is lovingly constructing his chef d'oeuvre.

“Dear Will, I do not take kindly to you using the word ‘sniffing’,” Hannibal murmurs while keeping a straight face, a charade he is sure Will appreciates. True to form, Will grins, luminous and riveted once again, gilded as sunburst. “I imagine I’ll be letting you get away with a lot of offenses. This is one I cannot abide by,” he says and it spears him like a sharpened lance how true of a declaration that is. He imagines he could allow Will liberties that he’d never otherwise tolerate. That, if Will chooses, Hannibal would gladly be subject to his every whim and desire. The notion is, perhaps, unsettlingly easy to accept but there is nothing to fear with Will. There is only that slowly coalescing primordial longing beating just behind Hannibal’s heart. 

“I should have known you’d be too dignified to not let it get to you. I’m sorry, Doctor Lecter. What would you prefer that we call it?” Will casts for composed civility but, from the quivering of his lips, it is evident that he is curbing his genuine amusement.

“What a tyrant you are to bully me so,” Hannibal tuts but he finds that he cannot entirely snuff out his all too likely adoring smile. Will is troublesome but unavoidable. Impossible to forsake and difficult to look away from. Hannibal’s attention, nebulous like miasma and intractable as flame, is not a thing to be bestowed lightly or with regularity. Yet, here, in Hannibal’s office, Will holds uncontested dominion. Hannibal is solely and entirely focused on him, swayed by him, much as he was ensnared by Botticelli’s Primavera back in Florence in his youth. “Comme de longs échos qui de loin se confondent dans une ténébreuse et profonde unité, vaste comme la nuit et comme la clarté, les parfums, les couleurs et les sons se répondent,” he recites, the french flowing out of his lips like honey from its combs. “Charles Baudelaire. He recognized that fragrance, with its strange noble power to expand into infinity, stirs the soul and the senses. It is a kind of miraculous crystallization of presence. Sometimes, your scent is what you leave behind. As a trace and thus a haunting, it is the cultural encapsulation of memory. The power of smell to elicit memory has partly to do with the unique wiring of olfaction directly to neural centers for emotion and memory, which are processed by the amygdala and the hippocampus respectively, before it connects to cognition.”

“I get it,” Will nods, a small smile redolent of nostalgia alighting on his face. His voice is soft, as soft as bird feathers when he near-confesses, “in New Orleans, when I believed I was fully committed to my short-lived stint fixing boat motors, I would pass by this modest local diner on the way back home almost every night. The owner and her husband casually knew my dad and I and, in the manner of small towns and kind-hearted neighborly caretakers, she insisted on feeding me. Not free of charge. It wasn’t a charity. But she’d prioritize me. Dote on me as though I was her favorite stray. Very maternal. I was too proud and stubborn to acquiesce, of course, and I wouldn’t have. Except… she made the best brioche pudding doused and infused with caramelized warm bourbon sauce. My mouth is watering just remembering it.” Will’s throat clicks with the audible force of his swallow and he laughs sweetly with helpless embarrassment. “It was _unbelievably_ good and had a distinct savory fragrance. Smoky and sugary like treacle but with a touch of.... elegant richness. Every bite would melt perfectly in my mouth. Like it was, I don’t know, buttery candied apples maybe. Sitting there, surrounded by the flow of inane chatter after the end of a long day, I felt safe. Comforted. Or the closest approximation of those. Now, whenever I walk by a restaurant in downtown DC that’s serving bread pudding with bourbon sauce, I’m transported to that moment in time. That ephemeral half-forgotten past.” 

The smile Will shoots him is a fragile flickering thing. It’s ill-suited, Hannibal briskly decides. Will isn’t made for half-hearted fickle inbetweens. He is made for unfettered emotion, for a primal intensity that could collapse stars and reign over the wilderness. But, Hannibal’s own complaints regarding his admittedly selective aesthetics of behavior aside, he is certain that this is the first time Will spoke so much all at once. Hannibal would be remiss to disabuse him of it. So, Hannibal inclines his head in a considering nod, his eyes unwavering in their unrepentant interest. It is a rare thing for Will to speak so openly about his past in Louisiana, rarer still for him to initiate this kind of vulnerability when he is so barricaded inside himself, so much more familiar with living with self-isolation than he is with cracking himself open for Hannibal.

“We all are inextricably tied to that which cultivates terrestrial reminders of paradise. It is an intrinsic desire as old as time immemorial to eagerly seek gratification in all its multifaceted shapes and forms. Some emotionally intense experiences are likely to cement an association between the emotion and the odor associated with the event, hence the olfactory imaginary, even if the event itself is forgotten. We may think of such events as lodged in a sensuous unconscious, which may be brought to consciousness, and its stories with it—as in the stories that tumbled from Proust’s narrator’s fragrant encounter with a madeleine dunked in a tisane of tilleul. Yours happens to be bread pudding marinated in bourbon sauce. Remind me, then, to prepare it for you at the nearest occasion whenever you find yourself disposed to have dinner with me.”

This time, Will’s grin is less phantom-like and as true as the ruby-red blood that spills out from the Ripper’s freshly hunted sounder. “Careful, Doctor,” Will says teasingly, his teeth flashing like pearls in a velvety jewel box. “It sounds like you’re wooing me with your impeccable charm, your well-maintained library, _and_ your masterful culinary prowess. It’s all too good to be true. Screams of danger to me.”

 _Oh, Will_ , Hannibal thinks. _Beloved, you haven’t the faintest idea. Perhaps you suspect, perhaps your tried and true instinct is warring with what you see laid before you. I’ll mould you, darling. Carve you out of your marble cage. And then, you shall see_. Hannibal’s lips unfurl in an inscrutable but no less fond smirk. “It appears you’ve caught me red-handed, Will. I see there’s little I can do to put you under my spell. You’re proving to be more resilient and resistant to all that I have to offer you unlike the rest of my associates. I suppose that for the first time in a long time I have to put in real effort into reeling you in.”

“And here I thought I was the fisherman between the two of us,” Will laughs, his voice as warm and raspy as a crackling fire. 

His posture, unlike before, is relaxed, content even. The line of his shoulder slumped and the corners of his mouth loosed, unbothered and uncaring. Hannibal feels a flare of unfiltered pride at knowing that he’s patiently and expertly unwound Will. That it is likely that he’s the only one capable of such a feat and even if it were not so, Hannibal could just as subtly foster a dependency, weave a spider’s web spun out of unequivocal understanding, stimulating intellectual conversations, and emotional reliance. Whatever it is that Will needs, Hannibal will provide it for him in spades that he won’t think to go to anyone else. 

Hannibal will make sure of it. 

“Look at us,” Will exhales around a flustered chuckle. It’s disconcerting in its endearing beauty but Hannibal finds that he’s growing used to being caught off guard by Will’s rough-hewn sweetness. “We keep getting distracted by each other. I have to drive back to Wolf Trap soon if I want to make it there before midnight and attend to the dogs. And I don’t want to renege on our… arrangement?” He moves his lips around the word with uncharacteristic gauzy softness. Like he’s afraid it might break. Like he’s afraid of some invisible malicious forces at work that might catch wind of it.

“Yes, that would be prudent,” Hannibal says, making a pleased hum in his throat. “Thank you for thinking of me, Will. I appreciate it immensely.” Will’s manners, though a little worse for wear, are instilled deep within him. A product of his Southern upbringing, Hannibal suspects, and, in all likelihood, a result of his father’s kind but rigid moral instruction. That Will feels compelled to summon the dredges of his deferential, if not reverential, decorum for Hannibal’s propriety sensibilities speaks volumes. 

“Of course, Hannibal,” Will murmurs, his eyes sweeping up at Hannibal’s face before sliding down to his chin. Then, as though he’s worked himself up for it, his gaze glides back up again to meet Hannibal’s, his eyes large and stunning and trusting. _My brave boy_ , Hannibal thinks. _My daring brave boy_. Strangely captivating. He is both the sunlight and the shadow, both the age-worn battered soul and the stumbling newly-born fawn, both the hunter and the hunted. Such contrasts live within him, such startling discord. But it is not sympathy with which Hannibal looks at him with. It’s with something akin to devotion. Not fully formed. Not yet. But it’s nascent, glimmering in its seductive promise. It says: here is someone deserving of your attention. It says: this could be your companion. It says: he could very well be your beginning and your end. It may likely be so. Hannibal watches intently as Will runs his fingers through his loose curls at the back of his head. Then, Will turns to him and asks in a low intimate voice, “how would you like me?”

 _Oh_. Hannibal’s breath nearly stutters out of sheer surprise amplified by the flash of smoldering heat that simmers just beneath the surface of his skin. What a devastating creature he is. Unflinchingly marvelous, radiant as the first pre-dawn light but just as severe as the unforgiving scorch of flames. Hannibal tastes something like dark triumph on his tongue, tempered by Will’s lovely wide-eyed earnestness. This isn’t just a well-manufactured ploy to coax Will into his side but it’s also for Will’s sake. Hannibal has always been meant to be Will’s port in a storm. His paddle while he’s trapped on the boat of his own making suspended in the middle of a dense fog that reaches for Will and whispers in the voices of all the killers and the murderers he’s let roam free in his mind at Jack Crawford’s behest. This exercise should center Will, ground him in the moment, present him with the opportunity to inhabit his body and focus on lived sensation rather than chase after remnants of contemptible ghosts who were, for all intents and purposes, inferior to Hannibal and, therefore, are undeserving of Will and his dreams. They’re no better than the mud that he walks on, the insects that he pays no mind to. He will brush them off so that Will and he are alone together. So that Will is his for the taking, his to influence and change however he sees fit. 

No matter how much Hannibal would like to move and arrange Will to his own liking, it’s important that Will is secure in his knowledge that he controls this encounter. That he could initiate it and end it with one breath and Hannibal would obey him and follow his command because Will’s word is his law. “Dear Will,” Hannibal replies and his voice is dripping with tender worship, surreptitious, soothing, just for the two of them. Will can make of it what he will. “Your comfort is my priority. You can choose whichever position you prefer. Whichever feels right to you and you can rest assured that there’s no wrong way.”

Will wets his lips with a perfunctory swipe of his tongue and takes Hannibal’s words in. Chews on them with the same relish he consumes Hannibal’s homemade packed lunch that Hannibal has taken to sharing with him since he’s been too absent-minded and preoccupied that he forgets to eat regularly. “How much physical contact there needs to be?” Will asks, blunt and forthright and unashamed. 

“None at all. Or as much as you’d like there to be. Proximity is all that’s required. I don’t need to touch you to smell you, of course. Your smell, after all, is somatically coded, bringing with it a freight of personal affect. It can be a turn towards embodiment and transcendence simultaneously.” 

The disappointed droop of Will’s shoulders is nearly indiscernible and so is the faint tightening around his mouth. But Hannibal’s eyes are drawn to them, his interest sharpening and honing in on Will’s insightful body language. He refrains from interfering at this juncture, electing to draw Will out, and arranges his face so that he appears forbearing and calm, knowing himself to be fully capable of giving Will the time to ask for what it is that he wants. Will hums softly, drumming his fingers on top of his thigh, and then seems to come to a decision after half a minute of quiet deliberation but there is a delicious timorous vein to his faltering. One that Hannibal could sink his incisors into and tear apart mercilessly. His fingers itch for his scalpel that’s stowed beneath the parchment paper along with the graphite on his desk. It is a good thing that they are away from it and that it remains unseen. Effectively out of sight, out of mind. But… how curious that Will entices the Ripper so. How fitting.

Will’s eyes are half-lidded when they flash back up to Hannibal’s, his lips parting open as he sucks a shuddering breath in. “If it’s okay with you,” he inclines his head, deferring to Hannibal even when it is his choice to make. _Soon_ , Hannibal thinks. _Soon you won’t be deferring to anybody. Perhaps not even myself._ And what a majestic sight that would be, all Hannibal’s to witness and venerate.

“I don’t mind being touched. Not by you. You’re always gentle but firm, sometimes clinically so which, ironically enough, I don’t seem to mind. You’ve never treated me like… What was it you said? One of ‘uncle Jack’s fragile teacups that get taken out on special occasions.’” Will huffs humorlessly, the self-deprecating tilt of his lips fascinating to catalog and file away. “Besides,” Will shrugs, his brows arching as his hands come together to interlock in a slack grip over his lap. “I haven’t been touched in a long time,” he admits and it’s so vulnerable and tremulous, beautifully so. Will is practically baring his throat for Hannibal, defenseless and flayed open. Wounded, perhaps. “I thought I’ve forgotten what it feels like. I mean, sure, my dogs are always all over me all the time. They’re affectionate and playful and, sometimes, they like to gather around me in front of the lit fireplace in a puppy pile on colder nights. Winston and Buster are particularly fond of sneakily hopping up on the bed hoping I don’t notice them and shoo them off. But they’re not as slick as they like to think. I just… can’t bring myself to push them away because having them close is—ameliorating.” Will’s voice comes out measured, forceful, as though if he doesn’t dole the words out with percussive precision, they would forever remain encased in frozen amber beneath the distress and the loneliness and the mortification. 

Hannibal doesn’t do him the disservice of pitying him. That would be the greatest discourtesy and the most disrespectful one he could inflict upon Will. Instead, he offers the most prized kindness he has at his disposal: understanding. Will sees it in his eyes, the intelligent boy that he is, and nods gratefully, the upturn of his lips a gorgeous sight to behold. A reward unlike any other in of itself. 

“If my aftershave is so terrible, I can’t imagine what kind of havoc the wet smell of seven dogs must be doing to your olfactory system,” he says, his pinks lips quirking up in a ruinous grin, shadows shifting in the fathomless stormy green of his gleaming eyes. 

It’s a well-practiced method of deflection, the crutch of someone who, private to a fault by nature or by nurture, hurriedly tends to their bleeding injuries, patching them up and for fear of exposure and ridicule, concealing them from sight before the brunt of others’ scrutiny bears down on them. It’s a darling that Will must murder in Hannibal’s presence because, while Hannibal might prod at these old injuries and might carefully peel away the gauze to let them breathe and scab over, he wouldn’t betray Will in such a potently fraught and reprehensible manner. This kind of treachery is below him: it’s too pointless, bereft of fanfare and ceremony and aesthetics. He’s always preferred the cataclysmic hedonistic performance, the visceral macabre stylized in the Grand Guignol with elements borrowed from classical timeless Greek tragedies. So Will doesn’t need to hide from Hannibal—not while he’s so astonishingly and unbearably charming. Not while Hannibal is still proving that he’s worth Will’s time and interest. In the meantime, Hannibal will do him the courtesy of turning a blind eye and swimming along with the sway of Will’s tides.

Hannibal cocks his chin, gaze fixed on Will, the trace of a smile tugging on the corners of his lips. “I have already come to peace with the indelible fact that you and your seven domesticated strays are part and parcel of this package and that I can do nothing about it. They are as much a part of you as the rhythmic beating of your heart and I’m loath to taint that, Will. I feel it behooves us that I declare I’ve no particular love for companion animals. However, for your benefit and friendship, I shall… attempt to _endear_ myself to your pack.” He’s riveted as he feasts his eyes on Will’s startled airy laugher. A nimbus of light, a bright diffusion. He revels in it: that he is the cause of it. That all the tension’s melted out of Will as he leans naturally into Hannibal’s body, his lips stretched out in unmitigated joy and his twinkling eyes crinkled around the edges. 

“I can’t wait to see that,” Will says. 

Then, gently, softly, Will reaches out and curls his fingers around the circumference of Hannibal’s hand and, meeting Hannibal’s gaze, he guides his palm so that it rests on Will’s shoulder. It’s all measured and slow, a ballroom dance, a holy hunt bathed in the light of the silver moon, the two of them sizing each other up, excavating their pangs of hunger and their desires and their nature to turn over with the same devout awestruck attention as one who pours over iridescent stones and opalescent shells and fossilized relics. Will doesn’t look away when Hannibal experimentally digs his fingers into Will’s skin. Doesn’t flinch when Hannibal’s hand travels from his shoulder to clasp the side of Will’s neck, his thumb pressed against Will’s external carotid artery, his fingers buried in the soft hair over his nape. He can feel the stuttery uptick of Will’s pulse, the lovely jump of it. Will’s staring at him with a yearning that’s been broken open, splintered and spilling forth all his starving festering aches. There’s an unspoken plea in his eyes, a thing of helpless desperation, a jaw trap with its teeth pulled out. He knows Will enough by now to be certain that his boy would never be reduced to begging, that he might draw blood first before he’d beg for anything, especially from Hannibal. He strokes his thumb over the vulnerable softness of his jugular, imagines tenderly slitting it with his scalpel and adoringly marking it with kisses as soft as dew. _Darling_ , Hannibal thinks, taking in the infinitesimal flutter of Will’s lashes, the nearly undetectable quiver of his breath, the shivers that cavort up the arch of his spine. 

“Hannibal,” Will murmurs, dazed, his lower lip trembling. Hannibal has barely touched him and not nearly enough. Not even close. “Hannibal,” he says again, a seductive mantra inside his mouth. A prayer echoing.

Hannibal barely prevents himself from hissing, from possessively sliding his hand down from Will’s neck to his waist, from gripping him and maneuvering him however he likes, from licking into the emptiness of Will’s mouth and eating him whole. They’d gorge themselves on each other, on their closeness, whet their rapacious appetites on the divine magnificence of their kills. Hannibal shifts closer, but does it fluidly, carefully, watching for signs of dismay or rejection. When he finds none, Will’s half-lidded glazed eyes pinned on him, he dips his face lower so that his nose is hovering over Will’s jugular notch. Will, ever mindful and considerate, tilts his head backwards, his neck stretching out like a swan’s, the cynosure of all eyes but it’s only Hannibal whom Will deconstructs himself for with all the willing grace of a sacrifice. A lamb lying down with the wolf. Dante’s pilgrim embarking on his journey into the depths of hell. Hannibal breathes in and hears Will gasp sharply above as he shudders; so primed and sensitive, silently pleading to be touched and caressed as he deserves. However, this is not their purpose tonight and it would be foolhardy to impulsively wade into waters they’ve yet to test without prior and extensive discussion. There is also, undeniably, power in restraint that is appealing, particularly when the reward is considered _sui generis._ Hannibal inhales again and, _oh_ , there’s that scent that swathes Will like a diaphanous shroud, a lustrous symphony of notes in concord, all simply distinctive, vividly reminiscent of Virginia’s wild crisp autumns and of flowering fragrant jasmines stitched together with fresh springwater and coral honeysuckle (which, Hannibal’s mind supplies, means that Will has gone fishing just this morning). The wet dog musk is still there, ever-present and intrusive, but it’s clean. There are hints of oatmeal fused with a faint suggestion of baking soda. 

“The shampoo you wash your dogs with is homemade,” Hannibal says, a detached observation more than anything else. 

“Yeah,” Will replies, a touch spacey, his voice dimmed into a low register but no less enchanting for it. “I make their shampoo, as well as their meals, from scratch. It’s time-consuming but fulfilling. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” 

“No, you wouldn’t,” Hannibal agrees fondly. He doesn’t elaborate as is his custom; instead, he chooses to push his hand up further into Will’s hair, lightly kneading at his scalp. Will instantly _uncoils_ , collapses his weight against him so that his chin is perched on Hannibal’s shoulder with his face pressed up against Hannibal’s neck. He makes a strangled sound, something high and grateful, muffled into Hannibal’s skin and Hannibal’s flooded with inexplicable warmth that is so heavy it might sink him were he to be tossed into the water. It’s been some time since his last casual affair and they are often (not always) impersonal, meant as deceptions, manipulations or outright alibis that could swiftly shift the blame off of him if he were a possible suspect. But this… this is decadent, unspeakably intimate, laden with savory indulgence. It is his selfishness breaking through the surface and claiming what it demands to be freely given. His fingers rake through Will’s hair and tug just enough to delight in Will’s choked whine that he tries his hardest to smother into Hannibal’s bespoke suit jacket. Hannibal hums wordlessly in response, switches into petting the back of Will’s head, secretly marveling at the glossy silkiness while lightly entertaining how he might make this a permanent fixture in their… conversations.

They remain like this for the rest of what remains of the evening: Will slumped against Hannibal, his face tucked into the side of Hannibal’s neck, his breaths slow and deep, suspended in a dream trance. Will’s beautifully settled down, has melted into Hannibal pliantly, not a tense muscle in his sedate trim body. The rise and fall of his chest is rhythmic, steady, like the scratch of an antique gramophone needle. When the clock strikes eleven, Will peels himself from Hannibal, an embarrassed but genuine smile pulling at his mouth. His hair’s ruffled from Hannibal’s fingers and his clothes are as creased as Hannibal’s dress shirt and suit jacket but he’s _radiant_. His cheeks are flushed with color and his eyes are blazing with contentment. He thanks Hannibal profusely and shyly as he steps out into Baltimore’s chilly night and Hannibal, leaning against the door’s threshold, smiles faintly, both amused and satisfied. It appears that he won’t have to go to great lengths to convince Will that this intimate scene is conducive to his health and mood. Will will likely come for it on his own. 

And Hannibal delights in interesting developments as much as he takes pleasure in designing his tableaus.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr.](http://mythosial.tumblr.com)


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